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16—47372-3 GPO 



■.,1 

PHILADELPHIA 

Social Science Association. 



Industrial and Decorative Art 
in Public Schools. 

READ AT A MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION, OCTOBER 2 1ST, 1880. 



CHARLES G. LELAND. 




PUBLISHED BY THE 

PHILADELPHIA SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION, 

720 LOCUST STREET, PHILADELPHIA. 



L' 






THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF THE PAPERS READ BEFORE THE 
ASSOCIATION. 



1871. Compulsory Education. By Lorin Blodget. Out of print. 
Arbitration as a Re77iedy for Strikes. By Eckley B. Coxe. 

The Revised Statutes of Pennsylvania. By R. C. McMurtrie. Out of print. 
Local Taxation. By Thomas Cochran. 
Injant Mortality. By Dr. J. S. Parry. 

1872. Statiite Law and Common Law, and the Proposed Revision in Pennsylvania. 

By E. Spencer Miller. Out of print. 
Apprentices Jiip. By James S. Whitney. 
The Proposed A7nend7nents to the Cojzstitution of Pennsylvania. By P'rancis 

Jordan. 
Vaccination. By Dr. J. S. Parry. 
The Census. By Lorin Blodget. 

1873. The Tax System of Pennsylvania. By Cyrus Elder. 

The Work of the Constitutional Convention. By A. Sydney Biddle. 

What shall Philadelphia do with its Paupers ? By Dr. Isaac Ray. 

Proportional Represetttation. By S. Dana Horton. 

Statistics Relating to the Births, Deaths, Marriages, etc., in Philadelphia. By 
John Stockton-Hough, M.D. 

On the Value of Original Scientific Research. By Dr. Ruschenberger. 

On the Relative Influence of City and Country Life, on Morality, Health, Fe- 
cundity, Longevity and Mortality . By John Stockton-Plough, M.D. 

1874. The Public School System of Philadelphia. By James S. Whitney. 
The Utility of Government Geological Surveys. By Prof. J. P. Lesley. 
The Law of Partnership. By J. G. Rosengarten. 

Methods of Valuation of Real Estate for Taxation. By Thomas Cochran. 
The Merits of Cremation. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 
Outlines of Penology. By Joseph R. Chandler. 

1875. Brain Disease, and Modern Living. By Dr. Isaac Ray. Out of print. 
Hygiejie of the Eye, Considered with Reference to the Children in our Schools. 

By Dr. F. D. Castle. 
The Relative Morals of City and Country. By Wm. S. Pierce. 
Silk Culture and Home Industry. By Dr. Samuel Chamberlaine. 
Mind Reading, etc. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 

Legal Status of Marj-ied Wojuen in Pennsylvania. By N. D. Miller. 
The Revised Statutes of the United States. By Lorin Blodget. 

1876. Training oj Nurses for the Sick. By John H. Packard, M.D. 

The Advantages of the Co-operative Feature of Building Associations. By 

Edmund Wrigley. 
The Operations of our Building Associations. By Joseph I. Doran. 
Wisdom in Charity. By Rev. Charles G. Ames. 

1877. Free Coinage and a Self-Adjusting Ratio. By Thomas Balch. 
Building Systems for Great Cities. By Lorin Blodget. 
Metric System. By Persifor Frazer, Jr. 

1878. Cause and Cure of Hard Times. By R. J. Wright. 
House-Drainage and Sewerage. By George E. Waring, Jr. 

A 1 lea for a State Board of Health. By Benjamin Lee, M. D. 
The Germ Theory of Disease, and its Present Bearing tipon Public and Per- 
sonal Hygiene. By Joseph G. Richardson, M.D. ■ 

1879. Delusive Methods of Municipal Financiering. By Wm. F. Ford. 
Technical Educatioji. By A. C. Rembaugh, M.D. 

The English Methods of Legislation Compared with the American. By 

Simon Sterne. 
Thoughts on the Labor Question. By Rev. D. O. Kellogg. 
On the Isolation of Persons in Hospitals for the Insane. By Dr. Isaac Ray. 
Notes on Reforfti Schools. By J. G. Rosengarten. 

1880. Philadelphia Charity Organizatioit. By Rev. Wm. H. Hodge. 

Public Schools in their Relations to the Community . By James S. Whitney. 
Industrial and Decorative Art in Public Schools. By Charles G. Leland. 



/. 



INDUSTRIAL AND DECORATIVE ART IN PUBLIC 

SCHOOLS.* 

IT can hardly be doubted that, notwithstanding the wonderful 
improvement which has taken place during the present cen- 
tury in the conditions of life, we are almost as far off as ever from 
having settled two questions which may be said to lie at the very 
basis of social science and of social progress. One of these is the pro- 
viding work — or the means of making a living — for everybody ; the 
second, which is closely allied to it, is: " How shall we educate the 
young, so that, while acquiring the ordinary principles of mental 
education, they shall, at the same time, familiarize themselves with 
some practical hand-work or art, so that, when they leave school, 
they may either be able to do something to support themselves, or 
at least not be obHged, so to speak, to go to school again?" For 
it is, literally, going to school when the youth finds himself help- 
less in a workshop — not merely ignorant of the use of tools, but 
even of the capacities of his own hands, eyes and brain, as regards 
using them. 

As regards the first question, that of providing work for the 
many, I confidently assert that we are worse off, in this respect, 
than any of the Oriental races of antiquity — than Greece, or Rome 
or the people of Europe during the middle ages. I do not deny 
that these people were mainly slaves or serfs, that they were bar- 
barously treated and that many of their conditions of life were 
worse then than now. But, admitting this, the main fact remains 
— to our discredit — that there were fewer paupers among them. 
For the ancient owner of slaves took care that they were kept at 
work ; and a friend of mine, who has investigated deeply the social 
condition of Europe during the middle ages, informs me that the 
degree to which the monks busied themselves in providing work 
for everybody, whether bond or free, was really wonderful. And 
you may remember that in those days, what with wars and wild 
ways of life, there were ten causes to create pauperism where there 



* A lecture delivered before the Social Science Association of Philadelphia, Oc- 
tober 2 1 St, 1880. 



is one now. The industrial efforts of the Roman Church, and its 
constant and merciful amelioration of the condition of its serfs, 
should never be forgotten. 

Now, if I am asked how it was that so much work was provided 
for all these people, in ages when there were far fewer wants than 
at present, I reply that, among many reasons, the chief was that all 
their buildings were profusely decorated with hand-made ornamen- 
tation, and that this was mostly of a kind which could be readily 
learned and practised even by children, while the materials were 
cheap and easy to obtain everywhere. Supply and demand acted 
and reacted, until a universal public taste existed — the result of 
which was, incidentally, such a general knowledge of art, that the 
most enthusiastic believer in universal progress is forced to admit, 
with Dr. Ray Lankester, that — as regards this, the chief principle 
of culture — the word has fallen behind into mere imitation. 

Let those deny it who may, the fact remains that labor-saving 
machinery, despite the incredible multiplication of new wants, and 
admitting the immense services which it has rendered to man in 
increasing his comforts, has on the other hand degraded art and, 
what is worse, greatly increased the number of idlers. Under the 
old system, there were, let us .say, fifty men employed at one kind 
of work. A machine is invented which supplies far better work at 
lower prices, and requires only one man to work it. Of course, 
this man is the best, physically and mentally, of the fifty. Now, 
out of the forty-nine, there will be many good workmen who are 
not at all qualified to become foremen and to run machines. A 
man may be an admirable artist but no " mechanic," as the word is 
properly understood. The result of all this is, that while some are 
thrown out of work, on the other hand, the successful candidate is 
expected to feed more idlers than he did before. Reflect on this. 
It is very creditable to the American mechanic that he spends 
almost four-fifths of his earnings on his family, while his English 
rival only divides his wages equally with them. But there is a 
dark side to the picture in this, that the children of the American 
mechanic do not all work, that too many of his girls take to aping 
idle gentility, while the boys, at least, live by their wits or by some 
calling which is not strictly productive. 

A few years ago I should not have known how to suggest even 
a partial remedy for this evil. But I think that at last something 



5 

may be done to cure it. The same agencies which developed 
science and labor-saving machinery, I mean the great agencies of 
culture, have not only developed a taste for decoration and a re- 
nascence, as it is called in art to distinguish it from the renaissance 
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but are also rapidly pro- 
claiming that every object to be really artistic, must be hand-made. 
Let me give you an illustration of this. There is a firm of artistic 
metal workers in London, that of Barkentin and Krall, which is 
employed by the Ecclesiologcal Society, and which is perhaps the 
first in England. At this establishment they make anything from 
a crown for royalty, or a tiara, or church plate, down to shovels and 
tongs and pokers, and all purely artistic and elegant. But they 
will supply nothing which is not hand-made. This is not a fleeting 
fashion of the hour, this demand for the hand-made. It is destined 
to grow with the growth and strengthen with the strength of art, 
until it shall be directly recognized, even by the multitude, that 
no machinery-made fac simile whatever has any claim to be con- 
sidered as artistic as the word should be understood. 

This same nineteenth century revival of earlier art, not only 
calls for the hand-made, but also for the decoration of houses in a 
style which shall be within the means of the poor. For the world 
has begun at last to understand that in all the great ages of culture, 
whether of Greece, or the East, or in Europe, art was never yet 
taken down to the people from the higher classes. On the con- 
trary, it has always risen to the higher classes from the people. 

Raphael and Michael Angelo never made a lower class artistic it 

was an artistic lower class which created them. This is the mistake 

under which the world has worked for two or three centuries that 

art and art industry can be brought back again and down to the 
humble multitude from the ideal heights to which it ascended in 
ages when every man was in his soul an artist. 

Now I am convinced by study and experiment that there are 
certain manual arts, by the practice of which a vast proportion of 
idlers may find profitable employment, and which being easy to 
acquire may be introduced into all schools, where they would serve 
to train the young to more serious and practical trades or callings, 
just as their reading, writing and arithmetic prepare them for their 
mental duties. For, — I repeat it, — no education can be considered 
as complete when its subject has not learned to make anything, or 



to use his hands, or exert his creative faculties. This, I assert has 
been wanting, — and there are many here present who have been 
long aware of it. But the difficulty has been to know what to teach. 
In many cases the regular trades, such as shoe-making, carpentry, 
or smith-work, are utterly inapplicable. They require too much 
time or physical strength, or cannot be harmonized with the stud- 
ies and discipline of a school. And this reflection brings us again 
to the thought that what is wanted are arts especially adapted to 
the weak, the young, and the lesser gifted in every way. I tell 
you plainly that there is a great mistake, and a very inhuman one, 
in the American idea of industry, and it is expressed by the word 
" Excelsior." You are taught in popular poetry and by popular ex- 
ample, to adore the successful competitor, to worship the one million- 
aire of a million, to exaggerate the splendor of success, — or to 
admire the man who " dies in the harness " in striving for success — 
and to give no thought to those who are less than leaders. I confess 
that my sympathies are not so much with the man gifted with a supe- 
rior and indomitable will, as with the many who are just as deserv- 
ing but less fortunate. Now what I would urge is that the public, 
abating somewhat its insane worship of mere success, shall show 
more sympathy with the less successful competitors for fortune or 
fame. And this can be done by creating work for them in pro- 
portion to their powers. 

Now, as to the kinds of work which are easy to learn, and which 
fulfil all the conditions which I have specified. A few of these are 
making or laying mosaics for pavements or walls, Scagliola work 
embossing sheets of soft leather by the process formerly known as 
ciiir-houilli, superficial panel carving, repousse work or the ham^ 
mering sheet metal, stenciling walls, ceilings and wood-work- 
moulding in papier-mache, and modelling in clay and other sub- 
stances. These are only a few of the handicrafts which may be 
cited as fully illustrating what I have said. Many others more or 
less practical will suggest themselves, and there will be various 
conditions and demands for different kinds of labor in different 
communities. But I cite these because they supply articles which 
are greatly in demand, since in fact they answer to the chief wants 
in the new styles of house decoration. 

To those who are not practically familiar with them, these arts 
may seem or sound difficult. From my own experience, and from 



experiments with the young, I confidently assert that every one of 
these handicrafts may be acquired in a week or two by any youth of 
• either sex, to such a degree as to render the work profitable, or at 
least to make proficiency more than probable. Once in England I 
was representing this to a lady who was really clever in such mat- 
ters. "I can believe," she said, "that I could with very little teach- 
ing master embossing in thin brass sheets, or superficial wood-carv- 
ing, or stencilling. But I do not think I could learn to make 
mosaics. It seems to require too delicate a sense of art and more 
skill than I could ever acquire." I replied to her, " Most of the 
mosaics which you see sold for house-decoration are made by the 
lowest, most brutal and ignorant creatures in existence — by female 
convicts in the prisons. They are employed at it because it is 
easy, and suited to their extremely limited capacity." I need not 
say that after this my friend had nothing more to object as to the 
superior genius required for setting common mosaics. If you will 
reflect an instant, you will perceive that the placing cubes of col- 
ored stone the third of an inch in length in a bed of cement, ac- 
cording to a pattern in which they are all laid down, is not more 
difficult than to move the squares about in a game of fifteen. 
Neither is it a very difficult matter to learn to make these little 
cubes by breaking them with a hammer on an iron bar. In Lon- 
don they are sold ready made of every color, by Salviati. In 
America, where marble and other stones of every color are so 
abundant, the material should be very cheap. There is an elegance 
and a character, with an assurance of durability in a mosaic pic- 
ture which renders it very attractive. Among the ancients there 
must have been scores of thousands of people employed in this 
work, for no Roman villa has as yet been discovered without 
mosaics. There are hundreds of them as yet lying buried in the 
city of London. Those who are familiar with Roman, Byzantine 
and Lombard mosaics will agree with me that we have in this an 
art, which, when patterns are supplied, may be cheaply practiced 
by the poorest persons. 

I dwell on mosaic, because it is a type of the other arts which 
are capable of being introduced into schools. It is easy, the ma- 
terials for it can be everywhere obtained, it is in demand. It may 
be urged against me, that as soon as there shall be a wide-spread 
and popular demand for it, it will at once be made by machinery ; 



that it will be cheapened and vulgarized. But the truly cultivated, 
and this class is increasing rapidly, will not have the vulgar imita- 
tions. It seems to be ordained by a special providence that all 
men who undertake to manufacture works of art by machinery, 
shall be cursed with bad taste and only minister to the ignorant. 
And, in fact, since it has become fashionable for the devotees of 
culture, to boast that they have nothing in their drawing-rooms 
which is not hand-made, we may trust to the multitude to do for 
fashion's sake what no sense of art would ever suggest. Here, 
however, is something for every teacher of every kind to think over 
and inculcate. You are the true ministers of culture ; you can, 
in this reform of which I speak, effect incalculable good, by show- 
ing all within your influence, that the simple giving the preference 
to hand-labor in decoration, to the machinery-made, would suffice 
to give a living to all who are turned out of work by machinery. 
For, it cannot be denied that when the world recognizes the great 
truth that nothing is tj^uly artistic which is not hand-made, and 
which does not directly indicate the touch of the original artist, 
then a great contribution will have been made to a solution of the 
labor question. 

But, as you are eminently thinking and reasoning people, there 
is a question which I am sure has already risen in your minds. 
Where is the art to come from which is to direct the practical ex- 
ecution of all these decorative arts? Where, for instance, is the 
mosaic worker to get his patterns, or how is the brass worker, if 
he has them, to copy them, knowing nothing of drawing ? To 
this also, I can give a satisfactory answer. Whether they are to be 
supplied by Government with Patent Office and Educational Re- 
ports, by Legislatures or private or municipal generosity, one thing 
is certain, that printed patterns suited to such elementary work as 
that of which I speak, costing on an average about as much as a 
daily newspaper, would hardly be wanting. I think- that I could 
undertake to collect among the public-spirited men of our city, 
money enough in a day to supply our schools with patterns for a 
year. As for applying them to wood, to sheets of metal or leather, 
the process is purely mechanical and very easily learned. It can- 
not, of course, be denied that the student of the minor arts must 
learn to draw a little. But, as all who are here present know, 
simple decorative or ornamental drawing consistingmerely of lines, 



is not only easy to copy, but also easy to learn in its elementary 
principles, and that the child who can trace a spiral or a serpentine 
line with tolerable steadiness, may, in a few lessons, be brought to 
design patterns fairly enough. 

With very cheap mosaic work, such as is made by small child- 
ren in Italy, and by female prisoners in London, you may have 
artistic floors and walls which may be washed and dried far more 
easily than wood. Almost as easy an art is plain panel carving. 
Very effective work may be made by merely picking or stamping 
designs in wood, and then oiling them. The trouble with all carved 
wood work, as with all other kinds of decorative art, for more than 
a century, has been that all upholsterers and mechanics seem to 
have striven, as one man moved by a single mind, to make pur- 
chasers believe that all excellence consisted in expense. Now, the 
truth is that if the design be only truly artistic^ and if it be only 
stamped or lightly sketched with the gouge on the wood, it will 
do very well to make up into cabinets or wall-panelling. What 
the world wants for the poor is more design and less work ;' what 
the cabinet maker wants is to sell as much work as possible, and 
exclude rivals from' the business. He does not care to see the poor 
supplied with artistic though rough furniture, for this would spoil 
his business with the rich, who would want still more refined de- 
signs, which he could not supply. 

And this brings me to another question, which is, however, 
most intimately connected with all I have said. It has become a 
very serious source of complaint that the supply of apprentices to 
handicrafts or arts is failing. We may inveigh as much as we 
please against the growing gentility or folly of the youth of the 
age, we may be disgusted at their impatience of wholesome dis- 
cipline — the fact remains the same, and all we can do is to look 
about for a remedy. The artisan wants youths who are in a degree 
prepared to work for him. Hitherto he has prepared them himself; 
now he hardly knows what to do. Why not prepare them for him 
in our schools ? It is wonderful as it is true how ve^y far a little 
practice in any art will go, when it is influenced by the ordinary 
training of a good school, towards preparing youth for the work- 
shop or atelier. This solution of the difficulty should suit, I think, 
both master and man. Thirty years ago, I said that it seemed to 
me that the Polytechnic School would be the true university of the 



10 

future, and every advance in education since then has confirmed 
me in my opinion. Now, why should not our pubHc elementary 
schools serve to prepare boys properly, that is to say, practically, 
for either the university or for the workshop ? There was never a 
man or woman in this world who was not better off for being able 
to make something. This is so generally recognized as true that it 
is wonderful that there are so very many who can do nothing of 
the kind. How many youths or girls are there, who when they 
particularly want a little money know how to earn it ? A girl can 
perhaps do a little plain sewing, or play a little on the piano, or 
paint a little, but out of all this she can hardly extract a dollar. 
Yet there are all about her people who cannot afford carved dados, 
mosaic floors, stamped and gilt sheet-leather covered furniture, all 
of which that girl could give them for a price within their means, 
and which would give her a living — all after a little steady appli- 
cation. It is a fact that in the poorest cottage where there are 
children past infancy, it would be possible to have Pompeian floors, 
carved dados, stencilled walls and ceilings, and plain oak furniture, 
but still artistic, covered with antique patterns, Spanish stamped 
and gilt leather, at no greater cost than that of the wood, leather, 
stones, and white or colored washes needed. They are now imi- 
tating for the saloons of Belgravia the tables and chairs which the 
Tyrolese and Bavarian peasants manufacture for themselves ; for 
there is a kind of pinned or bolted joinery which is as easy to make 
as it is elegant and durable. You have only to teach people how 
air this is to be done, and they will do it. 

You may think that I exaggerate the ease with which all these 
decorative arts may be taught to children. But in the opinion of 
George J. Robinson, the celebrated artistic decorator, of London, 
all these branches, especially mosaic work and stencilling, are per- 
fectly within the reach of the young. Mr. Karl Krall, the first 
metal worker of my acquaintance, thinks the same as regards re- 
pousse work or embossing and chasing. Mr. H. McDowell, who 
recently modelled to order several members of the Royal Family, 
thinks the same of modelling. All of these eminent artists con- 
tributed chapters on their specialities to a book which I have writ- 
ten expressly to forward the cause of artistic education. They 
are as earnest as myself in the faith that art should be practically 
taught to the young, and Mr. Krall was so impressed from my ex- 



II 



periments in tuition and their success, that he assured me last 
December, that in future his firm would make a speciality of sup- 
plying amateurs with materials and tools, and give them instruc- 
tion. But if you would have a guarantee at home of the practical 
possibility of all I have said, I can refer you to my friend, Mr. Frank 
Furness, the architect, whom you all know by reputation, and who 
fully authorizes me to give it as his opinion, that the young of our 
schools are perfectly capable of manufacturing such work as I have 
described. 

I trust that you all, however, distinctly understand that what 
I am specially advocating is not the practice of sundry small arts, 
nor even Art itself, but the introduction into all schools of manual 
industry in any forms which may conduce to develop ingenuity 
and cleverness. If you take one person with another it will be 
found that in going through life, that man or woman has great ad- 
vantages who can discern relative distances by the eye, transfer or 
'draw patterns, effect household repairs, and judge with some accu- 
racy where taste is concerned. And here I may remark, incidentally, 
that I am not sure but that all future mothers of families might not 
be taught to advantage in schools, the mysteVy of mending broken 
china, glass and toys, or furniture. The exercise of our creative 
or constructive faculties is the result of an instinct which is strongly 
manifested in youth, and, when properly conducted, it enlarges and 
strengthens the intellect. It is the boast of the Yankee that he 
excels in this ready constructiveness, this handiness, this ability to 
whittle, and tie, and in every way develop and conjugate his great 
national active verb " to fix." It is seriously a pity that such a de- 
cided talent should not be properly trained in schools. It is this 
constructive talent, this great gift of ingenuity, which has more than 
any other cause made the American nation practically great. 
Every one who possesses it has shown it in youth, and youth is the 
time to secure it. Is it not wonderful, that with such known and 
admitted facts, we have never regarded manual ingenuity as a subject 
for elementary education ? Many an inventor, many a great archi- 
tect, many an artist, and v^ry many a practical mechanic who is 
now lost to the world in the great mob of middlemen between pro- 
ducers and consumers, might have been redeemed from nothing- 
ness, had his boyish instincts been quickened by early culture. It 
has been shown, and I think wisely, by the disciples of Froebe], 



12 

that drawing- should go with writing in infant schools, or even pre- 
cede it, since literal imitation in man precedes symbolism. Now, 
this brings us to a very important and interesting subject. Some 
years ago, the British Government, finding that art could not be 
brought down from Raphael and Perugino in national galleries to 
the people, and that art was necessary to save manufactures from 
ruin, resolved to establish art-schools. Now these were well, as far 
as they went. But they do not go far enough. It is a grand thing 
to be able to say to a youth who has shown decided genius : There 
is a capital school, with casts from the antique, and lectures; go and 
be educated for nothing. And many have gone and become artists, 
and the world has profited thereby. Yet it is as plain to the 
British Government of the present day as it is to every thinking 
man, that art industry, despite the schools, does not advance rap- 
idly enough — nor is it sufficiently universal. In fact, you might as 
well propose to most poor boys or girls a course at Oxford or 
Cambridge, as one at the South Kensington or Manchester. How 
are they to live at these great schools, perhaps in cities distant from 
their homes, while they are being educated ? Perhaps they are, 
however, gifted, almost unconsciously of their own abilities. Now, 
a very small amount of technical or artistic education in the schools 
would soon settle the question as to their talent. Mere drazving 
will not do this. But elementary drawing as a part of hand-work 
in all schools, would soon make art universal, and vastly enlarge 
the scope of our national industry. 

There are people who are ignorant enough to believe that drawing, 
and, indeed, all exercises of the constructive faculties in children, 
are a kind of play, and that they consequently detract from legiti- 
mate study or industry. Now this remnant of old-time barbarism, 
which regards everything as wicked which is not disagreeable, is so 
far from being founded in common sense, that, on the contrary, in- 
vestigation shows it to be utterly at variance with truth. For it is 
a fact, that minds which are by nature sluggish, or, as it were, under 
a cloud, may be raised to great quickness of apprehension and have 
the cloud blown away, by merely mechanical exercise, and this 
quickness of perception may in turn serve as the ground for, or be 
developed into, great and varied intellectual powers. This is very 
curiously shown, as I have set forth in a lecture on Eye Memory, or 
Visual Perception, in the manner in which many thieves train boys 



t3 

to become quick-witted and observant. The preceptor takes in his 
hands a number of small objects, such as keys, coins, beads or but- 
tons, and opening and closing his fingers very quickly, makes his 
pupils tell what they have seen. Now there are people who would 
say " Well, and what if they do become quick and observant at 
such a trifling game? It would not make them clever in other re- 
spects." But the master-thief knows better. He knows that when 
those boys are sent out to beg, that their eyes, slow before, will now 
be ever watchful, like foxes looking out for prey. He knows that 
if they gain admission to a kitchen, and obtain one second's glimpse 
through a half-open door of a drawing room, in that glimpse they 
will take in all that is in the apartment and, returning, give him 
from memory a complete catalogue of all that it contains. Now I 
believe that in like manner quickness of perception may be gained 
by the practice of manual arts, just as it is stimulated by certain 
games, and that a boy or a girl will become a better arithmetician, 
a more accurate observer of maps and boundaries, and a far better 
writer, for being trained to some technical pursuit or art. 

I will now present to you, as the last consideration, that which 
was the first, which occurred to me some years ago, when I resolved 
to do all in my power to popularize the practice of the minor 
arts. It is their moral influence. Do we not all know that there 
are countless thousands of young people who have no way of em- 
ploying there leisure hours, save in idleness, folly and dissipation? 
They can make nothing profitable ; they can do nothing which has 
aught in common with culture ; they cannot even amuse themselves 
rationally or decently. Give any one of them the smallest art, let 
him or her believe that some proficiency has been obtained, but 
above all let the practitioner find a little profit as well as pastime 
in it, and you will have done much to defeat the devil. 

If it be advisable to supply rational amusement and profitable 
pastime to the merely idle, what shall I say of the large class who 
have taken the first steps in vice, who live in lazy ignorance, and 
who take the second and all succeeding steps with terrible rap- 
idity, simply because time hangs heavy on their hands ? It is 
wonderful to one who knows the world well, to reflect how many of 
these semi-unfortunates are kept back .from plunging headlong 
over the Niagara of despair simply by some thread of art, some 
little tie of industry. Truly, idleness is the tap-root of all evil. 



t4 

From a moral point of view, it seems to be really necessary that 
for the idle, and all outside the social pale, attractive arts should 
be provided, since it is hardly to be hoped that they will take up 
serious trades for pastime. 

As for my summary, it is double. As regards the expediency 
of training all children to use their constructive faculties as cor- 
relative to the mental, the marvel is to me, as it has been to many, 
that it has not long been a recognized element in all education. 
As regards the practical disposition or profitable sale of the results 
of art-workj you will observe that at every turn we find hand-work 
in art ruined, oppressed, and demoralized by the machinery which 
in all matters of mere physical comfort has done so much to ele- 
vate mankind. Therefore, I urge you to encourage the New 
Fashion which embraces the True Faith, that as, according to 
Gcethe, man is properly the only object which interests man, that 
only is purely a work of art which brings us into direct sympathy 
with the artist. I do not mean by this the extreme and immoral 
doctrine of art for the sake of art, or the making mere cleverness 
an excuse for anything. But I do mean that just as much as imitation 
in the sphere of usefulness is a reality, just so much in the sphere of 
art is it a sham, a foe to industry and humanity. I have been much 
gratified in returning to America, to find that there is a popular 
admission of this principle in the phrase which calls any kind of a 
gaudy humbug, or stigmatizes all shoddy displays of art or style as a 
Chromo. Second-hand, imitative art is at present the only serious 
impediment in the way of employment for many thousands of youth, 
who but for it would soon find profitable employment. If all who 
teach in this country, whether from the school, the pulpit, or the 
editorial chair, would join in putting down "Chromos" and similar 
shams in every form, we should soon see hand-work in art properly 
appreciated. 

It is many years since I began to reflect seriously on the ex- 
pediency of making hand-work of some kind an element of the 
education of children. In looking about in life, I found that very 
few people have any practical skill as regards making or repairing 
objects, and that those who manifest it are regarded as being " very 
ingenious" and especially gifted. Apart from all its practical utility, 
I found that this manual dexterity could be taught to young people 
generally, and far more easily than reading or writing. Many ap- 



plications of it are tolerated of semi-amusements or accomplish- 
ments, in the form of "fancy work," but it has not been regarded 
as capable of exerting a serious influence in education. Yet I found 
th2it physical quickness, and aptness were conducive to mental quick- 
ness, and that the motive power of thought could be quite as well 
developed by using the hands as by some studies in vogue. The 
idea in a practical form was not new. Among the Norsemen, who 
were a highly vigorous and clever race, champions boasted not 
only that they could fight, but that they could carve in wood and 
walrus bone, forge weapons, and paint their ships ; while in the 
scheme of the ideal education of knights and gentlemen, as de- 
scribed by Rabelais, we are told that they learned carpenter's work, 
painting, and sculpture, and went about to factory and shops to 
make themselves practically familiar with all kinds of mechanical 
callings and arts, such as casting and working metals, the labors of 
lapidaries and goldsmiths, weaving and clock-making. It was not 
until a later and lazier age that ignorance of such arts became 
characteristic of gentlemen, or, as Thackeray says, really creditable 
to them. And at the present day there are thousands of men 
who are so contemptibly vulgar as to boast — or who would like to 
be able to boast — that they had " never done a day's hard work in 
their lives." And in the best and most cultivated society, ladies 
and gentlemen are regarded as highly accomplished who, never- 
theless cannot turn their hands to anything. In this respect the 
world has fallen behind the Middle Ages, and grown snobbish by 
making ignorance characteristic of superiority to "the lower 
orders." There are many in every community who regard indif- 
ference to mechanical skill, or ignorance of it, as really character- 
istic of gentility, while those are few indeed who consider it as 
essential to " an education." We may call ourselves what we 
please, and adopt what form of government we please, but until 
hand-work is as respectable or as highly honored as a knowledge 
of dead languages, or the semi-useless accomplishments in fashion, 
I shall believe that as regards the chief characteristic of republic- 
anism, the world has made no advance whatever. It is not enough 
that it is highly creditable to a gentleman that he isable to use 
his hands as well as his head ; the day is coming when it will be 
very ^wcreditable to him if he can not. Now, I ask you if you do 
not think that the introduction of industrial and decorative art into 



i6 

education would go far to remove the aversion to labor which still 
practically prevails in society ? The world is chiefly governed by 
second-hand ideas, just as it has been chiefly clad in second-hand 
clothes, Avhich have gone from parent to child, or from master to 
servant, and so on downwards ad ijifinitiim. This scientific and 
common-sense age of ours aims at something better ; it is endeav- 
oring to substitute newer, stronger, and cheaper suits, even if less 
elegant, for the worn-out finery of the past. Make work an inte- 
gral part of every education, in every school, and you will not see 
society burdened with young men flying from hand-labor as if it 
were destruction, and seeking gentility, though on the most starv- 
ing terms, as if it were salvation. If I am asked who will purchase 
the additional stock of all these genteel middle-men, or clerks or 
salesmen become manufacturers, I reply that society can more 
easily support ten producers than one produce broker. When the 
non-productive middle-men are in great excess, the result is seen in 
over-stimulated business, and in the consequent plethoras and sur- 
feits of stocks which lead to panics and long-continued stagnation. 
It is with very great pleasure that I have availed myself of this 
opportunity to meet so many who are practically interested in the 
great cause of education. The progress of society and of culture 
means the gradual promotion of the teacher in dignity in the social 
scale. The scholars and men who have made history, whether as 
writers or actors, and with them statesmen or artists, are after all. one 
and all, only great from light reflected from past ideas, or works 
which they have left in the past. In the hands of the teacher lies 
the whole future of mankind, its ways and the working of its will. 
Should the coming century carry out that which the past century 
has promised and begun, then the day is rapidly coming when the 
teacher will take precedence of all those callings which we now re- 
gard as preeminent. In that day, all who have done their duty 
will be remembered. Hitherto you have cultivated the head and 
heart ; in the future you will train the hands to co-operate with 
them. Is it not indeed remarkable — if you will pardon me one last 
reflection — that in a world in which the majority of people are, or 
ought to be, workers, neither work itself nor any practical prepara- 
tion for it, finds any place in our ordinary education ? I know 
that it is currently said that a boy should acquire book-learning at 
school, because he will find no time for it after the active business 



17 



of life begins ; but, I believe, there are millions of exceptions to the 
rule, embracing all except the hardest worked children of toil. In 
fact, there is as little reason that a child should not be prepared for 
hard work at school, as that a man should entirely cease reading 
after his education is at an end. 

I am, you all know, far from being the first to urge the introduc- 
tion of work into schools. Years ago, Governor Hartranft urged 
it with unwearied zeal, and many of our leading men have approved 
of it. To effect such a great reform in the whole system of ed- 
ucation, requires time ; but I am sure that, both in England and in 
America, the time has come for the public to accept this idea. 
Thanking you most sincerely for your kind attention, and soliciting 
from you any comments which you may be pleased to make on 
my remarks, I now conclude. 

Charles G. Leland. 



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